“’Bout ten miles to the single-chimney, Sir,” Kwantryl replied. “Looks like there’s two, maybe three cables between them, and they’re coming on pretty damned fast. Figure they’ll be right up to us in ’bout another hour.”
Bruhstair nodded without even commenting on Kwantryl’s language, added that information to his note, then tore the page out of his notebook and handed it to one of the ship’s boys who’d been sent up the tower to serve as runners.
“Lieutenant Tohryz, quick as you can!”
“Aye, aye, Sir!”
The youngster scurried down the ladder like a spider-monkey, and Kwantryl raised his head to watch him go, then glanced at Bruhstair. But the lieutenant wasn’t looking in his direction. He’d stepped to the edge of the observation tower, looking down on the section of guns along the battery wall that were his responsibility.
“Make sure we’ve got plenty of dressings!” he called down to one of the gun captains. “And get those water tubs refilled—especially the ones for drinking water! Don’t want any of you layabouts collapsing from thirst just to get out of a little honest work!”
Someone in the section shouted back. Kwantryl couldn’t make out the words, but from the tone, they were probably a bit saltier than Bruhstair normally tolerated. This time, the lieutenant only laughed, and Kwantryl nodded in approval. He could forgive any young twerp quite a lot when he was as devoted to his men as Dyaygo Bruhstair.
It was just sort of hard to remember that between times like this.
He snorted with amusement at the thought, and the lieutenant gave him a sharp glance.
“Something humorous about the situation, Kwantryl?”
“No, Sir. Not really. Just an old joke. Funny how a man’s mind goes on these little walks every so often.”
“Well, I recommend you walk it right back to that spyglass,” Bruhstair said a bit more tartly. “That is why we’re up here, you know.”
“Yes, Sir!” Kwantryl replied and bent back over the spyglass. It was probably just as well the lieutenant couldn’t see his huge grin from behind him. Explaining what was really so funny would land him in a shitpot of trouble as soon as the battle was over.
* * *
“Range is down to ten miles, Sir,” CPO Mathysyn reported. “The rangefinder has the southern battery in sight.”
“Thank you, Ahbukyra.”
Halcom Bahrns glanced at his admiral, and Sarmouth nodded that he’d heard the report. Ten miles would have been in range for Gwylym Manthyr’s 10-inch guns, assuming they’d had the elevation for it. Which they didn’t. At six degrees, their maximum reach was “only” twelve thousand yards, just under seven miles.
We’ll just have to keep going until we are in range, he thought. At least it won’t be that much longer, and Riverbend should be into her effective range in another twelve minutes. I just wish to hell there was some way to tell Whytmyn everything I know about the defenses.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t. Thirsk had made several adjustments in the last couple of days, only after the squadron had sailed for the attack. There’d been no time for a “seijin” to legitimately learn about those adjustments and get word to Sarmouth. He’d done everything he could to adjust his own plans in the tradition Cayleb had established in the Armageddon Reef Campaign by “playing a hunch,” but there were limits.
He’d seriously considered asking Owl and Nahrmahn to deploy some of the SNARCs’ small incendiary devices. In fact, he’d discussed the possibility with all the inner circle’s senior members, only to discover their opinions were as divided as his own. Sharleyan, Merlin, Pine Hollow, and Maikel Staynair had all favored their use as the best way to save lives … on both sides. But Cayleb, Rock Point, Nimue, Nahrmahn, and Nynian had all opposed it because of the potential political consequences. In the end, after hours of debate, Cayleb and Sharleyan had declared that the decision was his, as the commander on the spot and the man whose officers and men would bear the action’s brunt.
A part of him wished they’d gone ahead and made the call rather than leaving it up to him, but he told himself that was his inner coward talking. And so he’d made the decision. In fact, he’d made it three times, flipping back and forth with a degree of indecisiveness that was most unlike him.
Explosions in carefully selected strategic locations—like battery magazines—could have gone a long way towards easing his task. But this attack was as much a calculated political maneuver as a purely military operation or even the pursuit of long-delayed justice, and that political maneuver depended on a fine and delicate balance of factors in the city of Gorath itself. However helpful in a military sense, those magazine explosions might raise eyebrows—the wrong eyebrows—especially if they were mysterious explosions without some readily identifiable cause. It was probable that those inclined to assign demonic powers to the “heretics” would do just that—and that those inclined not to assign them demonic powers wouldn’t—whatever happened. But he couldn’t be positive of that, and as Nynian and Nahrmahn had forcefully pointed out, events in Gorath would depend at least in large part on the perceptions of two or three key individuals whose reactions they simply couldn’t predict.
And so, in the end, he’d decided against it. He only hoped it wasn’t a decision he’d regret.
And even if I’m not going around blowing things up with joyous abandon, and even if I can’t tell my people everything, we’ve already told them about one hell of a lot. It’s just going to have to be good enough. And young Makadoo may be able to buy me a little bigger “information bubble.” Speaking of which.…
He glanced up at the lookout pod. Gwylym Manthyr’s navigation bridge was thirty-five feet above the water, which gave it a visual horizon of just under eight miles in clear weather. His flag bridge was ten feet higher, which gave it another mile or so of visibility. The rangefinder on its raised pedestal atop the forward superstructure was twenty feet higher still, and its powerful range-finding angle-glasses could see over ten miles, about two-thirds of the lookout pod’s visual range. That was good, but he could do better.
“Is Master Chief Mykgylykudi ready?” he asked.
“Yes, My Lord.” Halcom Bahrns straightened from the voice pipe into which he’d been speaking and smiled. “I figured you’d be asking that right about now, and he says he’s ready to start paying out cable anytime we want. He also says, and I quote, ‘Master Makadoo’s been squirming like his breeches are full of bees for the last quarter hour.’”
Despite his inner tension, Sarmouth chuckled. Young Zoshua Makadoo was Gwylym Manthyr’s fifth—and youngest—lieutenant. He was also a slightly built, quick-moving fellow, like many of the Charisian Empire’s new aeronauts.
“Well, we can’t have Zoshua driving the Bosun crazy,” the admiral said. “Best tell him to get started.”
* * *
“What the fuck?!”
The startled obscenity escaped before Ahlfraydoh Kwantryl could stop it and Lieutenant Bruhstair looked at him sharply. But the seaman only straightened and gestured at the spyglass.
“Sir, you’d better have a look yourself.”
The urgency in Kwantryl’s tone erased any temptation to rebuke him for his language, and the lieutenant put his eye to the spyglass. For a few moments he couldn’t understand what had startled Kwantryl so, but then he inhaled sharply as he saw the large white … shape rising above the biggest heretic ironclad. It was already considerably higher than the big ship’s mast, and it went on climbing higher, rapidly and smoothly, as he watched. It was shaped something like a flattened cigar, he thought, but it had some sort of stubby vanes, or wings, or something, and it was clearly harnessed to the ship somehow.